


Battlefields

by jusrecht



Category: Sengoku Basara
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jusrecht/pseuds/jusrecht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various Sengoku Basara drabbles</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Greatness (Sasuke, Yukimura)

  
The span between a great warrior and a great general is great indeed.  
  
For even his master stumbles, shoulders weighed down by the consequence of that great mantle. Expectations loom heavily over every step, and yet he never fails to rise at the tail-end of each fall. He plods on; Sanada Yukimura never knows any other direction but forward.  
  
Sasuke stills his hands, itching fingers coiled into silent fists. No soothing word slips past his lips. He toils in darkness and shade instead, spreading the black wings of his influence. Treacherous roads smooth under his hands, no stone left unturned—all for his master to walk upon.  
  
The title rolling to the tip his tongue, transmuted by time and necessity, is: “General”.  
  
Yukimura’s eyes dim, hope-feathered smile frozen into the likeness of a mask. This is useful practice, Sasuke tells himself even as his resolve trembles, for the future, for a stage where great leaders wear third and fourth layers to hide their true intentions.  
  
He withdraws as soon as he has made his report. In the wake of his leaving, Yukimura learns to ignore his tears—for a throne is a lonely place.  
  
Such is the price of greatness.  
  


_**End  
** _


	2. Perigee (Mitsunari/Magoichi)

  
The encampment was silent, gliding in the slumber’s depth when she awoke.  
  
Magoichi rose, as silently, as gracefully as a cat. Outside the bedding’s cocoon, cool night air embraced her nakedness as her lover never did. A wasting candle flickered and sputtered at one corner of the tent, casting a half-light to her surround. She found her clothes littered on the ground—her belts, her guns—and dressed herself in silence, mind already full with preparations for the day’s battle.  
  
“Our pact still holds.”  
  
Swallowing her surprise, Magoichi threw a glance back to the futon. Even barely out of sleep’s grasp, Mitsunari’s voice still cut like a sword. His eyes were no less sharp as they watched her, stern, dispassionate, as if she was merely another of his soldiers.   
  
And yet his words, spoken sharp and rough, belied his indifference. “I forbid you to die until I break it off, do you hear me?”  
  
Magoichi could have succumbed to the scorn which so tickled her insides, but did not. She moved toward him instead, and swung her leg across the narrow bedding to straddle his pale hips and kiss his resisting mouth. Mitsunari’s throat made a series of enraged sounds which only compelled her to hold him down, until he deigned to suffer her presence, her intent, her _intrusion._  
  
She smirked, and let him feel it in the shape of her lips. His responding growl only fed her amusement.   
  
“You need to learn how to say ‘be careful’,” she told him after she had withdrawn, taking pleasure in the scowl which had by now taken a permanent residence across his brow. He was never a graceful loser.  
  
“I can think of countless better ways to waste my breath.”   
  
“Like ‘please come back to me for I cannot live without you’?”  
  
He snorted. “Dream on, woman.”  
  
Magoichi smiled; somehow it was blander than absence. “It won’t kill you to be more honest.”  
  
“Yes, it will.”   
  
The matter-of-factness of his answer chased her into silence. She watched him, as he watched her, piercing eyes and ghost-laden stares. Neither blinked until he continued, softer, “But I’ve never said a word I do not mean.”  
  
A smile trembled on her lips; Magoichi did not allow its birth, aware of how he would perceive such a response, after his painful moment of honesty. “I know.” She straightened her back, but let her hands linger close to his sides. “The pact shall hold.”  
  
“Until I say otherwise.”  
  
“Until _I_ say otherwise.”  
  
His glare returned full force. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”  
  
She could not help another smirk. “Likewise, my lord,” she told him, fingers tracing the definition of his cheek with mock gentleness, “but here we are.”  
  
Mitsunari’s lips thinned, and his fingers caught her wrist in an iron grip. “But here we are,” he echoed, a strange expression alighting on his face for a fraction of a moment, then disappearing entirely.  
  
Outside, a bell tolled thrice to signal the hour’s passing.

  
_**End  
** _


	3. Figment (Mitsunari, Ieyasu)

  
Mitsunari never trembles.  
  
Even in a battlefield, waiting for thick swarms of enemies to descend on them, fear does not touch him. For a man whose entirety is no longer his own, there is little sense in such sentiment toward death. And Mitsunari is nothing if not logical.  
  
“My lord, the enemy is closing in.”  
  
Fingers steepled before the firm set of his lips, Ieyasu rewards the reporting soldier with a wordless nod. The colour of his eyes has deepened into molten gold, the colour of a burnished sky at dawn—the colour, Mitsunari reflects, of clear, absolute triumph.  
  
“Ready?”  
  
Mitsunari does not deign the question with an answer, and his silence draws a little smile to the curve of Ieyasu’s lips. “Thought so,” he murmurs, rising to his feet. “Not that I’ve ever doubted you. Well, let’s get this battle over with.”   
  
“For victory.”  
  
“For peace.”  
  
“Whatever.”  
  
The low, pleasant sound of Ieyasu’s laugh still echoes in his head when battle cries soar into the smoke-blackened sky. The first enemy soldier falls victim to his sword in the name of that laugh.  
  
Mitsunari never trembles; standing beside the man he has sworn his life to, fear has no place.

  
_**End  
** _


	4. Gamble (Masamune, Ieyasu)

  
“Your kindness is going to kill you one day.”  
  
Ieyasu turns around, and there is this bright, earnest look in his eyes which tells Masamune that a spectacularly, excruciatingly stupid answer is coming. Right now.  
  
“Then it will be a good death.”  
  
Masamune stares. “ _Shit._ That’s actually stupider than I expected.”  
  
A smile quivers on Ieyasu’s lips. “But you agree?”  
  
“Do I look stupid to you?”  
  
“No. You look like a man to whom such things like looking stupid do not matter because you already know what you want.”  
  
“Shut up, Tokugawa.”  
  
Unfortunately for Masamune, Ieyasu’s grin is eloquent enough.

  
_**End  
** _


	5. Absolution (Motochika/Ieyasu)

  
A grave ought to be a beautiful place—so Ieyasu believes.  
  
And this one is, high above and yet close to the sea. Under his feet, grass grows in abundance, their greenness speckled by remnants of rain and shined by sunset’s gold. Two wooden markers bear the inked name of the dead, but their roughness scarcely detracts the essence of the grave itself, that of brave men dying of brave deeds. Seven paces away, the cliff gives way to a steep fall, to roaring water and its jagged deadliness beneath.   
  
“There can be no finer resting place than this for men of the sea,” he says quietly. From where he stands, the sea looks boundless, stretching far to a horizon besieged by clouds, trimmed by dying colours of twilight.   
  
Motochika does not answer. His gaze remains on the names he has written with his own hand, on the ghost lingering behind each inked letter. Ieyasu rests his hand on Motochika’s shoulder, just enough to leave a phantom of its warmth, and then turns around to leave.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
The softness, the sadness of that plea stays Ieyasu’s feet. A frown threatens on his brow as his moment of incomprehension passes and the taste of their straining friendship once more lies bitter on his tongue. “Really, Motochika, I thought we were done talking about this.”  
  
“No.” Motochika’s voice is no less quiet, no less fierce. “You cannot dismiss such mistakes so easily. I know that no matter what, words will never erase deeds, but I have little else to offer you.”  
  
“I already said that you could pay it by remembering me for the rest of your life.”  
  
Motochika’s sharp, wry smile answers him. “And does it measure? Such an easy feat for hundreds of lives and thousands more bereft of their loved ones. Imbalance is imbalance, even if it stems from the kindness of your heart.”  
  
“Then you will not accept my forgiveness?”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Ieyasu sighs. “Fine. If it will make you feel better, then you can have a threat instead.”  
  
“A threat?”  
  
“Yes.” He fixes Motochika with a serious gaze. “The next time you repeat those two words, I’m going to kiss you.”  
  
It earns him a long, blank look from the other man. “Is that supposed to scare me off?”  
  
Ieyasu bites his lips. “Maybe. Hopefully. Yes, that’s the general idea.”  
  
“Well, it doesn’t.”  
  
“Then at least it will shut your mouth.”  
  
Motochika’s eyebrow arches. “How do you know? Maybe I’ll just keep my mouth open and welcome you instead.”  
  
“And reciprocate properly?”  
  
“With tongue and all.”   
  
Ieyasu feels the corners of his lips twitch. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”  
  
“Well, maybe if you do kiss me…”  
  
They both burst into a laugh, and in that instant is something which neither deed nor word can carry; something like forgiveness, and it dispels the wall of tension thickly festering between them. “Fine,” Ieyasu declares, wiping tears which have sprung to his eyes with the back of his hand. “You can say whatever you want. I’ll just pretend that I hear nothing.”  
  
Motochika is silent for a few heartbeats, all traces of mirth fading by degrees as he considers silently. When it comes, it is a torrent of unbridled words and brimming emotions, soaring and rising sharply. “I’m sorry. Not only for doubting you, but also for every one of your men I have killed, for every cruel deed I have done, and for my inability to atone for these crimes. I would have given you my life but for the fact that it is not my own. Not yet. Not until I have seen peace with my own eyes and fulfilled my promise to both my dead and living brothers.” He bows his head but does not let go of Ieyasu’s gaze. “So for now, this is the only thing I can offer you. I’m sorry.”  
  
Ieyasu watches him, silent, unblinking throughout his speech. Motochika’s vow rings in his ears and settles deep in the pit of his stomach like a millstone—and yet he does not waver; instead, he meets it with the same straightforward determination he does everything else. For this is about Motochika as much as him, and he knows enough that there are always two persons, two sides, two perspectives in everything.  
  
“Thank you,” Ieyasu replies, bowing his head in acknowledgment. This is his part, to listen, to hold that oath, and he will play it for both of their sakes. Balance is balance.  
  
“However,” he continues before Motochika can answer, “now that it’s done, I have every intention to carry out my threat if you dare mention those two words again.”  
  
Motochika laughs—a loud, carefree sound. The arrival of his fist on Ieyasu’s stomach is another form of forgiveness.  
  


_**End  
** _


	6. Shield (Oichi, Ieyasu)

  
He smiles. Her heartbeat falters. For a moment, the world ceases to be.  
  
Then he looks away from her window, returning to his lines of troops. Their voices rise in unison under his command, a shield against the cold, snow-laced morning. Grinning now, he walks to the back of the group to join the drill, easily winning the laugh and resolve of his soldiers with each practiced movement, along with their devotion. Even the winter sun smiles down upon him, her fading light suddenly brighter, warmer.  
  
 _‘Ichi.’_  
  
Oichi retreats behind the bamboo curtain, once more safe—alone. The brightness of the snow hurts her, as does the sight of him smiling. She seeks some comfort in the cool, gentle caresses of her shadows, these black, waving tendrils that protect her from the light.  
  
 _‘Ichi.’_  
  
The whisper comes often nowadays, a ghost that haunts even her waking hours. Once again, her gaze strays toward the courtyard below, hunting for glimpses of yellow and brightness. Their contrast to her shadows fills her with despair. Two creatures of such different realms have no right to walk together (her paleness to his tan, her darkness to his light).  
  
But she could have loved him. And he could have loved her. Once upon a time.  
  
 _‘And then he will be ours.’_  
  
“No, he will not,” she whispers, a vehement, desperate prayer. “He will not.”  
  
The laugh which answers her bold declaration is high and cruel—different, but undoubtedly _his_. Oichi breathes in deeply to steady herself; and then, to that rippling, simmering darkness in the remote horizon, she inclines her head, always deferential.  
  
“That is why I’m still here, Brother,” she tells him, straightforward and unflinching. “To make sure that you will not reach him.”  
  
The demon king laughs.   
  
Oichi smiles—for she will prevail.

  
_**End  
** _


End file.
